Carl Zeiss' VR One is a $99 answer to the Samsung Gear VR

October 11th, 2014, 22:13 Posted By: wraggster

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New Video Game Releases

October 7th, 2014, 00:01 Posted By: wraggster

New Video Game Release Date List!
The new video game release date highlights for the week of October 6, 2014 on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Sony PS Vita, Nintendo DS, 3DS, and PC/Mac includeNBA 2K15, Alien: Isolation, DriveClub and a few more gems...
Our recommended new release of the week will go to the release of NBA 2K15:

Current Amazon Video Game Pre-order Deals:

NBA 2K15 KD MVP Bonus Pack Alien: Isolation Free Nostromo Edition Upgrade + Graphic Novel DriveClub Mercedes SLS AMG Coupe Black Series Pack and RUF RT12 R Pack

Check out the full list of new video game releases (USA) for the week on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Playstation Vita (PS Vita), Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, 3DS, and PC! As always, release dates are subject to change, slip, slide, and be fairly unpredictable.

Xbox ONE

NBA 2K15

Alien: Isolation

Limited Edition Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Wireless Controller

Special Edition Armed Forces Wireless Controller

Xbox One Kinect Sensor with Dance Central Spotlight

Project Spark

Forza 5: Game of the Year Edition

Dead Rising 3: Apocalypse Edition

Ryse: Legendary Edition

Playstation 4

NBA 2K15

Alien: Isolation

DriveClub

Minecraft

Xbox 360

NBA 2K15

Alien: Isolation

Playstation 3

NBA 2K15

Alien: Isolation

Nintendo Wii U

No new releases

PS Vita

No new releases

Nintendo 3DS

Tenkai Knights: Brave Battle

PC

NBA 2K15

Alien: Isolation

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FIFA 15 staves off Mordor, Forza, Smash Bros. to keep UK #1

October 6th, 2014, 22:48 Posted By: wraggster

FIFA 15 remains the UK's best-selling game at retail this week,staving off big name competition despite a 70 per cent drop in sales.
EA's football sim kept Warner Brothers' surprise critical hit Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor from the number one spot, but the game still has the distinction of being the most successful launch of a Lord of the Rings game ever, even though it doesn't use the name.
In third, another big release in the shape of Xbox exclusive Forza Horizons 2. 73 per cent of sales came from the Xbox One, and just 27 from the 360. The last of the week's big new entries is Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, with the Wii U version still to be released.
All charts represent boxed retail sales only and are courtesy of Chart-Track.

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Not quite Google Glass: a week with Epson's awkward smart glasses

October 6th, 2014, 22:33 Posted By: wraggster

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Microsoft's RoomAlive turns your den into a video game level

October 6th, 2014, 22:24 Posted By: wraggster

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Microsoft Research packs stylus with sensors for grip-based tools

October 6th, 2014, 22:21 Posted By: wraggster

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Camera Mod Lets this Raspberry Pi Shoot in Different Spectrums

October 5th, 2014, 22:40 Posted By: wraggster


For [Peter Le Roux'] first “real” electronics project, he decided to make a camera based off the venerable Raspberry Pi platform. But he didn’t just want a regular camera, he wanted something that could shoot in near IR wave lengths…
It’s a well-known fact that you can remove the IR blocking filter from most cameras to create a quasi IR camera hack – heck, that hack has been around nearly as long as we have! The problem is even if you let the IR light into the camera’s sensor, you still get all the other light unless you have some kind of filter. There are different ways of doing this, so [Peter] decided to do them all with an adjustable wheel to flip through all the different filters.
He designed the case after the PiBow enclosure – you can see our full Pi Case Roundup here – and had it all laser cut out of wood. Stick around after the break to see a nice explanation of the light spectrum and the various filters [Peter] uses.

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/03/camer...ent-spectrums/

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Supercapacitors for the Raspberry Pi

October 5th, 2014, 22:23 Posted By: wraggster


As versatile as the Raspberry Pi is, it has a weakness when it needs to be able to shut down properly during a power outage, especially when handling data-sensitive or industrial applications. To solve this problem, [Pavol Sedlacek] has created a supercapacitor-based UPS specifically for the Raspberry Pi that gives it enough time to properly halt its processes and shut down if it detects a power failure.
The device is called the Juice4Halt. It uses a DC-DC converter to provide power to the Pi from the normal power supply and to charge the supercapacitors during normal operation. It is bidirectional, so in the event of a power failure it works in reverse to take power from the capacitors and feed it back to the Pi. A second DC-DC converter handles power from an external power supply.
A side effect of using supercapacitors as a UPS is that they can also help the Pi survive brownouts. The project site has an incredible amount of detail about the functionality of the device, including circuit diagrams and the source code. We’ve seen other supercapacitor-based UPS units before but this particular one is much more robust and would be truly at home in any industrial or other sensitive setting.

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/04/super...-raspberry-pi/

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FIFA 15 is the UK's number one

October 4th, 2014, 01:17 Posted By: wraggster

FIFA 15 was dominant in the UK last week, taking 80 per cent of all software sales and 87 per cent of all revenue.
Last year's game had a staggered release due to the launch of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, but FIFA 15 hit eight platforms simultaneously. When compared to both of FIFA 14's launch weeks, Gfk CHart-Track estimates that FIFA 15 sold approximately the same number of units across all platforms, but increased revenue by 6 per cent.
And the new generation of consoles were the most popular choice, with 54 per cent of FIFA 15's total unit sales on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Between the two consoles, PlayStation 4 enjoyed a comfortable lead.
The only other new release to trouble the upper reaches of the chart was Nintendo's Fantasy Life on the 3DS, which finished in 8th place.

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Super Smash Bros 3DS still Japanese #1

October 4th, 2014, 01:16 Posted By: wraggster

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is still Japan's number one and has now sold over 1.3 million copies. The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II was a new entry in two spots on the top five, and combined sales of the PlayStation Vita and PS3 sales stood at 151,781.

1. [3DS] Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS - 109,811 (Lifetime sales - 1,375,818)
2. [PSV] The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II - 86,283 (New entry)
3. [PSV] Danganronpa: Another Episode - 70,596 (New entry)
4. [3DS] Yokai Watch 2: Ganso / Honke - 66,487 (2,592,433)
5. [PS3] The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki II - 65,498 (New entry)

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VRClay marries the Oculus Rift and motion control for easy 3D sculpting

October 4th, 2014, 01:08 Posted By: wraggster

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Now you can test drive a Lexus RC F with the Oculus Rift

October 4th, 2014, 00:56 Posted By: wraggster

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The Tah Bluetooth stick lets you control (almost) anything with a smartphone

October 4th, 2014, 00:52 Posted By: wraggster

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Gamefly Daily Flash Sale: Dragon Ball Z Battle of Z - $12.99, Rayman Legends - $14.99

September 26th, 2014, 20:56 Posted By: wraggster

Grab the following pre-played Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3, 3DS, and PS Vita games for super cheap + free shipping at Gamefly:

• Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z- $12.99
  
  
• Rayman Legends- $14.99
  
  
• Payday 2- $9.99
  
• Angry Birds Star Wars- $9.99
  
• Ragnarok Odyssey Ace- $17.99
  
• Plus More...

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PRICE ROUNDUP: Supermarkets flirt with a FIFA 15 price war

September 26th, 2014, 20:44 Posted By: wraggster

Sainsbury’s the Tesco have slashed a bit off the RRP of FIFA 15 today, although it’s hard to call the discounting a full-out price war.
Videogamer’s price roundup shows that the cheapest High Street price comes from Tesco, which has gone for a round £40.
However, both Sainsbury’s and Tesco will sell the game for £34.99 when bought with £30 worth of shopping or a PSN/XBL card respectively.
HMV is topping the other end of the scale, charging a whopping £52.99 for the next-gen SKU.
It’s all a far cry from the £24.97 Tesco charged for FIFA 10 back in 2009.
Here are all the prices:

• TESCO: £40 or £35 when you purchase Xbox Live credit, PSN credit, a PS Plus subscription or an Xbox Live Gold membership
• SAINSBURY'S: £44.99 or £34.99 when you spend £30 in-store
• ASDA: £42 (PS4/Xbox One), £40 (Xbox 360/PS3)
• GAME: £49.99 (PS4/Xbox One), £44.99 (Xbox 360/PS3)
• CURRYS: £44.99
• HMV: £52.99 with free Blu-ray worth £8.99
• ARGOS: £45.99 (PS4/Xbox One), £40.99 (PS3/Xbox 360)

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3DS Super Smash Bros. still Japan's #1

September 26th, 2014, 17:39 Posted By: wraggster

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS has made it two weeks at the top of the Japanese charts, scoring more than 1.2 million sales in the process. Yokai Watch 2 is behind it at two, now with over 2.5 million units sold.

1. [3DS] Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS - 321,363 (Lifetime sales - 1,266,008)
2. [3DS] Yokai Watch 2: Ganso / Honke - 56,380 (2,525,591)
3. [Wii U] Bayonetta 2 - 38,828 (New entry)
4. [PS3] Destiny - 18,396 (67,896)
5. [3DS] Dragon Quest X Online - 13,948 (89,299)

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Sony's Morpheus gamble could change course of VR

September 26th, 2014, 17:25 Posted By: wraggster

Oculus Rift still seems a long way off, while Morpheus is steaming ahead; but does Sony risk losing everything by pushing to market too soon?
PS4 is going gangbusters, 3DS continues to impress, Steam and Kickstarter have between them overseen an extraordinary revitalisation of PC gaming, and mobile gaming goes from strength to strength; yet it's absolutely clear where the eager eyes of most gamers are turned right now. Virtual reality headsets are, not for the first time, the single most exciting thing in interactive entertainment. At the Tokyo Game Show and its surrounding events, the strongest contrast to the huge number of mobile titles on display was the seemingly boundless enthusiasm for Sony's Morpheus and Oculus' Rift headsets; at Oculus' own conference in California the same week, developers were entranced by the hardware and its promise.
VR is coming; this time, it's for real. Decades of false starts, disappointments and dodgy Hollywood depictions will finally be left behind. The tech and the know-how have finally caught up with the dreams. Immersion and realism are almost within touching distance, a deep, involved experience that will fulfil the childhood wishes of just about every gamer and SF aficionado while also putting clear blue water between core games and more casual entertainment. The graphical fidelity of mobile devices may be rapidly catching up to consoles, but the sheer gulf between a VR experience and a mobile experience will be unmistakeable.
"right now it feels like Sony is going to launch a reasonably cost-effective VR headset while Oculus is still in the prototyping phase"

That's the promise, anyway. There's no question that it's a promise which feels closer to fulfilment than ever before. Even in the absence of a final consumer product or even a release date, let alone a killer app, the prototypes and demos we've seen thus far are closer to "true" virtual reality than many of us had dared to hope. Some concerns remain; how mainstream can a product that relies on strapping on a headset to the exclusion of the real world actually become? (I wouldn't care to guess on this front, but would note that we already use technology in countless ways that would have seemed alien, anti-social or downright weird to people only a generation ago.) Won't an appreciable portion of people get motion sickness? (Perhaps; only widespread adoption will show us how widespread this problem really is.) There's plenty to ponder even as the technology marches inexorably closer.
One thing I found myself pondering around TGS and Oculus Connect was the slightly worrying divergence in the strategies of Sony and Oculus. A year or even six months ago, it felt like these companies, although rivals, were broadly marching in lock step. Morpheus and Rift felt like very similar devices - Rift was more "hobbyist" yet a little more technically impressive, while Morpheus was more clearly the product of an experienced consumer products company, but in essence they shared much of the same DNA.
Now, however, there's a clear divergence in strategy, and it's something of a concern. Shuhei Yoshida says that Morpheus is 85% complete (although anyone who has worked in product development knows that the last 10% can take a hell of a lot more than 10% of the effort to get right); Sony is seemingly feeling reasonably confident about its device and has worked out various cunning approaches to make it cost effective, from using mobile phone components through to repurposing PlayStation Move as a surprisingly effective VR control mechanism.
By contrast, Oculus Connect showed off a new prototype of Rift which is still clearly in a process of evolution. The new hardware is lighter and more comfortable - closer to being a final product, in short - but it's also still adding new features and functionality to the basic unit. Oculus, unlike Sony, still doesn't feel like a company that's anywhere close to having a consumer product ready to launch. It's still hunting for the "right" level of hardware capabilities and functionality to make VR really work.
I could be wrong; Oculus could be within a year of shipping something to consumers, but if so, they've got a damned funny way of showing it. Based on the tone of Oculus Connect, the firm's hugely impressive technology is still in a process of evolution and development. It barely feels any closer to being a consumer product this year than it did last year, and its increasingly complex functionality implies a product which, when it finally arrives, will command a premium price point. This is still a tech company in a process of iteration, discovering the product they actually want to launch; for Luckey, Carmack and the rest of the dream team assembled at Oculus, their VR just isn't good enough yet, even though it's moving in the right direction fast.
Sony, by contrast, now feels like it's about to try something disruptive. It's seemingly pretty happy with where Morpheus stands as a VR device; now the challenge is getting the design and software right, and pushing the price down to a consumer friendly level by doing market-disruptive things like repurposing components from its (actually pretty impressive) smartphones. Again, it's possible that the mood music from both companies is misleading, but right now it feels like Sony is going to launch a reasonably cost-effective VR headset while Oculus is still in the prototyping phase.
"When these headsets reach the market, what will be most important isn't who is first; it isn't even who is cheapest. The consumer's first experience must be excellent - nothing less will do"

These are two very different strategic approaches to the market. The worrying thing is that they can't both be right. If Oculus is correct and VR still needs a lot of fine-tuning, prototyping and figuring out before it's ready for the market, then Sony is rushing in too quickly and risks seriously damaging the market potential of VR as a whole with an underwhelming product. This risk can't be overstated; if Morpheus launches first and it makes everyone seasick, or is uncomfortable to use for more than a short period of time, or simply doesn't impress people with its fidelity and immersion, then it could see VR being written off for another decade in spite of Oculus' best efforts. The public are fickle and VR has cried wolf too many times already.
If, on the other hand, Sony is correct and "good enough" VR tech is pretty much ready to go, then that's great for VR and for PS4, but potentially very worrying for Oculus, who risk their careful, evolutionary, prototype after prototype approach being upended by an unusually nimble and disruptive challenge from Sony. If this is the case (and I've heard little but good things about Morpheus, which suggests Sony's gamble may indeed pay off) then the Facebook deal could be either a blessing or a curse. A blessing, if it allows Oculus to continue to work on evolving and developing VR tech, shielding them from the impact of losing first-mover advantage to Sony; a curse, if that failure to score a clear win in the first round spooks Facebook's management and investors and causes them to pull the plug. That's one that could go either way; given the quality of the innovative work Oculus is doing, even if Sony's approach proves victorious, everyone should hope that the Oculus team gets an opportunity to keep plugging away.
It's exciting and interesting to see Sony taking this kind of risk. These gambles don't always pay off, of course - the company placed bets on 3D TV in the PS3 era which never came to fruition, for example - but that's the nature of innovation and we should never criticise a company for attempting something truly interesting, innovative and even disruptive, as long as it passes the most basic of Devil's Advocate tests. Sony has desperately needed a Devil's Advocate in the past - Rolly, anyone? UMD? - but Morpheus is a clear pass, an interesting and exciting product with the potential to truly turn around the company's fortunes.
I just hope that in the company's enthusiasm, it understands the absolute importance of getting this right, not just being first. This is a quality Sony was famed for in the past; rather than trying to be first to market in new sectors, it would ensure that it had by far the best product when it launched. This is one of the things which Steve Jobs, a huge fan of Sony, copied from the company when he created the philosophies which still guide Apple (a company that rarely innovates first, but almost always leapfrogs the competition in quality and usability when it does adopt new technology and features). For an experience as intimate as VR - complete immersion in a headset, screens mere centimetres from your eyes - that's a philosophy which must be followed. When these headsets reach the market, what will be most important isn't who is first; it isn't even who is cheapest. The consumer's first experience must be excellent - nothing less will do. Oculus seems to get that. Sony, in its enthusiasm to disrupt, must not lose sight of the same goal.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-course-of-vr

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Texting on Google Glass is just as dangerous as on a phone

September 26th, 2014, 17:01 Posted By: wraggster

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Fresh blood for the UK charts, but Destiny holds on to #1

September 23rd, 2014, 22:24 Posted By: wraggster

The arrival of Disney Infinity 2 and Hyrule Warriors has shaken up the UK charts, but has not done enough to shake Destiny loose from its position as the country's number one retail title.
Infinity takes second this week, with Hyrule Warriors a somewhat surprising third. The rest of the top ten is reshuffled, with no new entries until Square Enix's Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call at 17.
Last week's other top ten new entries, NHL 15 and Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, both slip down the table to 25th and 27th respectively.

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Yoshida: Morpheus is 85% complete

September 23rd, 2014, 22:21 Posted By: wraggster

Sony Computer Entertainment president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has revealed in a recent interview that the company's entry into the virtual reality market, Morpheus, is 85 per cent complete.
He gave the figure to the Wall Street Journal but did not hint at a release date or a price.
"With the Morpheus and PlayStation 4, we can offer them a totally new virtual reality experience in a lighthearted and fun manner," he said.
The news comes just days after the inaugural Oculus Connect conference where Oculus VR showed off Crescent Bay, the latest version of its rival headset the Oculus Rift.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rcent-complete

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